Spin Doctors: Unforgettable, funky and fresh

News-Times, The (Danbury, CT)

Published
8:00 pm EDT, Sunday, October 21, 2007

And although he hung a framed copy of the band's January 1993 Rolling Stone magazine cover in his bathroom -- of all places -- the Spin Doctors lead singer truly appreciates everything he's achieved over the years.

He also is well aware of his innate ability to craft radio-friendly songs, which include the No. 1 Mainstream Rock hit "Two Princes," the No. 2 hit "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong" and the Top 10 hits "Jimmy Olsen's Blues" and "You Let Your Heart Go Too Fast."

The new CD contains such blues-rock gems as "Sugar," "I'd Like To Love You (But I Think You Might Be Crazy)" and my personal favorite, "Margarita," which contains the lyrics:

"Because revenge is sweet / But success is sweeter / Take the salt from my wounds / And put it in my margarita / I'm the new kid in the candy store / By the time you want me back / I won't want you anymore."

"I always like to say that's a song about the brighter side of divorce," Barron said in an Oct. 15 interview from New York City. "I know a bunch of people who have gone through divorces and custody battles, myself included. I was sitting in a lawn chair in Florida while we were making that record. And that whole kind of lyric -- that whole song, the body of it, I wrote pretty quickly.

"It just all came out in one sort of amused burst," he added. "And later on when we were making the record, I filled it out a little bit. It was just based on discussions with friends of mine and people that I know just going through divorce and child-custody hell. I usually look on the more music side of things eventually. That's how that song came about."

Born Feb. 5, 1968 in Honolulu, Hawaii, Barron grew up in Riverdale, Bronx, N.Y., and later in Rye, N.Y. When he was 8, his father, a Navy veteran who worked for Avon, got transferred to Australia. Four years later, Barron moved to Princeton, N.J.

"My dad's ex-wife (immortalized in 'Little Miss Can't Be Wrong') spent all of my college money on a Ferrari Dino and a couple of fur coats and about two-dozen Saks Fifth Avenue suits," Barron explained. "And I wasn't able to continue there because it was pretty expensive."

Instead, he moved back to Princeton, got an apartment above Farringtons music store and worked in a kitchen. Each night, when he got home, he'd stay up until 4 a.m. writing songs, some of which became major hits years later.

"I was really into the blues -- Muddy Waters, Lightnin' Hopkins, John Lee Hooker," Barron said. "And then I bought an album with my allowance. I bought a 99-cent blues album. It was a compilation called 'Memphis Blues Again.' And none of the artists on it I ever heard of ever again.

"This one record is the one time I ever heard any of these artists, except for this one woman named (Lula) VanHunt, who played a song on the record called 'Jelly Selling Woman,'�" he added. "I saw her later on in a documentary on these aging Memphis blues artists. But that record blew my mind. It was just the crustiest blues. And again, they were singing these songs that were just about the simplest stuff. There was this one tune called 'Fried Chicken' and this dude is like, 'I love fried chicken, but my doctor says if I keep eating fried chicken I'm gonna die.'"

Barron was 19 when he penned "Two Princes," which became the Spin Doctors highest-charting hit and earned the band a Grammy nomination.

"I had really no idea the ramifications that was gonna have for my life," he said. "I think that I'm just kind of lucky in that I don't really set out to write hooky, catchy, infectious stuff. But I just do. I could have been born like Igor Stravinsky and just written really gnarly, complicated stuff. ... I always wrote stuff that was a little bit more toe-tapping.

"I remember being a young guy and people always had my songs stuck in their head," he said. "When I was 15, 16 years old, just starting out writing, I would play these tunes for my friends. Later on, in the afternoon, they'd be singing it. And then later on in the afternoon, they'd be singing it again. Then later on, in the evening, they'd be singing some filthy version of it. I always took it as a compliment because, 'Ha! You've got it stuck in your head!'"

Meeting his Spin Doctors band mates after moving to New York City with his friends from Blues Traveler, Barron went from "eating a knish a day, playing in the subway" to becoming a professional musician who could pay his own bills.

Soon, the band was packing clubs like the Nightingale Bar and the Wetlands Preserve.

"There was no Xbox and there was no such thing as a Blockbuster Night," Barron said. "So people were getting out and doing stuff, I think maybe a little bit more than they are now."

Signing with Epic Records, the Spin Doctors released "Pocket Full Of Kryptonite" in 1991. It went on to sell more than 10 million copies worldwide. The band's next album, "Turn It Upside Down" found the guys on tour with the Rolling Stones and playing Woodstock '94.

Since Schenkman left the band that September and White, who quit in 1999, is generally a fan of the band's older material, the Spin Doctors don't currently play songs from 1996's "You've Got To Believe In Something" LP or its followup, 1999's "Here Comes The Bride."

"Honestly, playing with Ivan and all the guys who have been in the band in the intervening periods has been amazing," said Barron, who lives in New York City. "And I'd love to play with Ivan again. At the same time, playing with the original guys -- having Eric and Mark and Aaron and me -- we've always had this insane chemistry. It's just always been a really special thing. From the moment that we first started playing together, it was really magic."

The classic members reunited in 2001, putting past disagreements behind them for a special concert in the closing weeks of the Wetlands.

"We're all older now (and) we've all got kids," said Barron, who has an 8-year-old daughter. "We're all a bit more patient and wise in the ways of the world. And we've been around for a little bit. We all realize how unusual it is to have a band where you have this kind of a musical chemistry. It doesn't happen to everybody even once in their lives. There's sort of a lucky element.

"I don't want to sound trite, but it's kind of analogous to finding two loves in your lifetime," he added. "It just doesn't happen to everybody. You have perfectly wonderful people who just don't ever find that. You have amazing musicians that just never find an ensemble that plays together the way we do. We all realized the value of what we have and we've sort of learned to smile at things that used to piss us off. And we get along pretty good."

�

The show begins at 8 p.m. The venue is at 80 East Ridge. Tickets are $57.50. Call (203) 438-5795 or visit ridgefieldplayhouse.com.